wildness, wonder, and the spirit of place

New poem

The family descended – the maps were burnt.
Everyone was asked to send donations instead of flowers.
Teachers lamented, “That girl never learned.” Ice cream melted
in boys’ hands, frogs floated to surface. You see, a girl should remain planted.
No story can end with ascension. The story must bear a point,
an edge, some form of pain only known when a woman appears.
If there is no lesson, the family frowns. How will she ever learn?
When a girl wears rags, she is allowed. When she grays into paper
the townspeople rejoice – spring is made. A woman – a story, that is, can be written only when she eats the frozen hand of a priest or when a wolf licks
his paws, sated with her – then she can be.
But she must not have been allowed to leave. The story, what of the story?
The old owl cries, the doors slam. Who shall bear this damned story?
What queen will suffer the stiff legs of age as the price of love demands?
This is a fair trade, trade for a girl rooted in the family name – so they may ever fly and sing. A girl must make the bed. A girl must be the bed
where a man may take her body and light the night – the darkest halls.

When she left her body for stars – a woman was no longer here, a moral.
A woman who was not a spell, but a woman, real and blood-born – not broken in to be written of or into moon – a heroine to decline your stories, to rise up and into her own existence.